


by hand and word

by redledgers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hands, Holding Hands, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 02:04:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10675428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: a romance of hands





	by hand and word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinderfell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/gifts).



> kaity blessed me with a WIP so for the most part the first half is hers and the second half is mine but I did go back and tweak her words a little here and there anyway it was fun
> 
>  
> 
> title from Jane Austen's "Emma"

Her fingers are slender, long and nimble and almost elegant in the way hands can often be. _Ladylike_ , he faintly recalls Vesper calling hands like that, bemoaning her own short and stubby fingers. At a closer glance, Vex’ahlia’s hands are not the hands of a lady who has lived in the courts. Rather, her hands are those of a woman who has fought for everything she’s gained, a woman who’s had to fight just to survive. Her nails are trimmed short, constantly blunt simply so they don’t get in the way. 

When she reaches over and twines their hands together—and oh _gods_ he still can’t believe that this is something he’s allowed to do, something she gives willingly—the pads of her fingers are rough from battle, from labor, from the bow she wields and the arrows she shoots so gracefully. But it is a comforting roughness, sure and strong.

 

- 

His hands shake without the familiar weight of a gun or tool, trembling at his sides as he tries his best no to come undone before her. He hates it, the way they betray his haughty mask and threaten to display his shortcomings.

Yet still she folds his hands between her own, pressing them tightly together. Her skin is almost unbearably warm. “You don’t need to tell me everything, Percy,” she says, her voice soft as he slowly meets her eyes. “I just want you to be okay.”

When he speaks it comes out as a croak and he’s hit with the incredibly unsettling feeling of floating within his own head, of existing just slightly off center in his body. It rings through his head: this is not my voice, this does not feel like me, something is wrong. Still, he continues, pressing on. “I don’t want to burden you with this.”

Vex is silent for a long moment, her eyes dark and wide and so _open_ with emotion. Finally, she says in a hushed voice, “Oh, _darling_.” And in a brief second, he feels his hands steady in hers.

 

-

He raises her hand to his mouth slowly, and he swears her breath stops as his lips brush against her knuckles. It’s barely a kiss, barely anything at all, but her reaction is instant, those dark eyes of her going almost impossibly wide. It’s a part of this back and forth, this wordless dance, this game they’ve been playing for months.

When he drops it, the same hand he’d been holding comes up to his cheek for a moment, palm warm and gentle, and she kisses his other cheek in nothing more than a brush of lips against skin. Her own hand lingers just a moment longer and then it drops. “Thank you, Percy.”

 

-

Her fingers flex against nothing, as if she is trying to grasp the wind, but her fists clench and he runs for her, pulls her back because _not today, dear, I won’t let them take you._ And maybe her eyes are glassy, her fingers cold and tight around his hand, but when she wakes up screaming hours later he is there, hands against her cheeks, lips pressed to her forehead. Her grasp is strong and sure on his arm now, but he never _ever_ wants to feel that panic again.

 

-

It’s a joy to watch him work, his capable hands skirting over every tool before selecting just the right one with the precision she uses to draw her bow. The way his fingers solve clever puzzles, disassembling and reassembling his weapons or some new project. The way his palms are covered in charcoal after an afternoon of sketching and how he’s loathe to wipe them on his trousers (but he’s done so on his face already).

She sits with her head on the workshop table, watching the process of creation, watching his fingertips skate over the shaft of an arrow that’s just for her. Sometimes she helps, but only when two hands are not enough and she understands how much this means to him.

 

-

It’s almost hesitant the way she takes his hand, as if they didn’t spend the past few minutes telling everyone they would live the rest of their lives together, if their friends hadn’t whooped and hollered at even the barest of a kiss. And it’s her that’s trembling now, her fingers searching for comfort in his surprisingly steady hand. He squeezes it gently, reassuringly, and together they leave the temple, silver bands glittering on their fingers.


End file.
